List of Battlestar Galactica objects

This is a list of notable objects found in Battlestar Galactica, original and new continuities.

Original Continuity (1978-1980)

Daggit

Daggits are a class of dog-like Colonial pets. Like Earth dogs, they served as a domesticated pet, watch animal, or tracker; none survived the Cylon holocaust.

In the 1978 pilot episode, "Saga of a Star World", Boxey (Noah Hathaway) loses his pet daggit, Muffit, in the Cylon attack. Boxey is given a replacement pet, a robotic daggit named Muffit II, a prototype intended to replace the lost daggit species' warrior support roles.

Like a real daggit, the new Muffit proves its bravery and dedication to protecting humans during a dangerous fire aboard Galactica ("Fire in Space").

Muffit II made a regular appearance in the original series, and was portrayed by a trained chimp named Evolution ("Evie"). Muffit does not play a role in the 2000s revival of Battlestar Galactica, where it appears that at least one dog survives the Cylon attack on the colonies.

In the reimagined series, dogs are simply called dogs, and unlike the original series, a number of these pets survive the holocaust and proceed to travel with the Fleet.

Pulsar

Pulsars are a class of energy weapons.

Tylium

Tylium is a metallic ore, and is very rare throughout the known universe, but essential for fueling both human and Cylon space ships, including for the purpose of faster than light (FTL) jumps. Tylium is featured in the original Battlestar Galactica's pilot, where it was pronounced "Tie-lium".

In the original 1978 pilot episode/movie, there are references to mining tylium, which implies that it is a solid or is contained within a solid; however, fuel consumption meters on the Colonial Viper instrument panel behave as if the fuel is a fluid.

In the re-imagined series, raw Tylium ore appears as a yellow, sand-like substance before it is refined into a golden liquid similar in appearance to motor oil; however it flows quickly like gasoline. In the episode "Dirty Hands", it is shown that the raw Tylium is stored in massive silos aboard the fleet's Refinery Ship where it is poured (by hand) onto conveyor belts and heated in ovens. It was never specified how this process actually converts the raw Tylium to a liquid state, however it is stated that "hot" Tylium is highly unstable, and if the carefully controlled process is interrupted it could "go critical" and explode.

In the episode "The Hand of God", Gaius Baltar mentions in dialog that the enthalpy of refined Tylium is (the enthalpy of combustion of gasoline is by comparison). Tylium is unstable and has a strong exothermic reaction if sufficiently heated, especially the less stable refined Tylium precursor. It is also mentioned that Tylium will become useless if subjected to strong radiation, which renders the ore inert.

Instrumentation

On the bridge of the Galactica in the original series, Tektronix, Inc., of Beaverton OR provided tons of test and measurement equipment, mostly rack-mounted, that provided the majority of the blinking lights, digital readouts and oscilloscope waveforms. A close look will show examples of their TM500, 5000 and 7000 series instruments. It was 1970s hardware in a futuristic environment, but Tek's equipment was ahead of its time. In addition, the Tektronix IDG (Information Display and Graphics) department provided the green cockpit displays of their "radar" showing advancing spacecraft of the Cylons. Tek created the software and provided the 4000-series display hardware for these effects.

New Continuity (since 2004)

Arrow of Apollo

The Arrow of Apollo is an ancient artifact; the symbol of the deity Apollo, (one of the Lords of Kobol), and was sought by the Colonial President Laura Roslin. It was written in the scriptures that the arrow be taken to the legendary Tomb of Athena on Kobol, and there it would point the way to the "lost" thirteenth colony of Earth.

Before its retrieval, the arrow was kept in a museum in the city of Delphi on the colony of Caprica. Starbuck takes the unauthorized mission in her captured Cylon Raider, to go back to Caprica and retrieve the arrow for Roslin. She eventually finds the arrow unscathed in its display case, along with encountering Karl "Helo" Agathon and a copy of the Cylon spy Sharon "Boomer" Valerii.

President Roslin and her opposition group against Commander Adama fled to Kobol to await Starbuck's return. Roslin's spiritual advisor, Elosha, had died during a Cylon attack on the planet when Roslin leads an expedition to find Athena's tomb. Later, they were peacefully reunited with Commander Adama who led a rescue team to find the rogue expedition.

With the unsettling help of the Cylon prisoner, Sharon, the group finally finds the Tomb and used the arrow to activate a "starmap" that showed celestial objects recognized by Adama. Getting his bearings, he decides to follow a course toward a distant nebula cloud which he believes will eventually guide them to Earth.

The arrow is loosely based upon the Liahona in Mormon theology, with which travelers could be directed toward the land where the Lord wished them to go.

DRADIS

DRADIS "Direction, RAnge, and DIStance"^[1] is Battlestar Galactica's version of a remote sensing system akin to sonar or radar. It works in space, can be interfered with by radiation, and has a hard time detecting composite materials. Objects can be specially designed to avoid DRADIS (e.g. Stealthstar or Blackbird). Whereas conventional radar or sonar detects objects in the two dimensions of direction and distance, DRADIS detects in an additional third dimension - "carom".

Eye of Jupiter

The Eye of Jupiter is a religious artifact left by the thirteenth tribe in the Temple of Five on the Algae Planet that points the way to Earth (according to the scrolls of Pythia). It is a raised mosaic in an alcove (also Eye of Jupiter) on the floor of the Temple of Five, with a hole in the ceiling to let a shaft of natural sunlight illuminate it. The design of the mosaic is based on the Eye of Jupiter Nova. The mosaic is destroyed by a nova reminiscent of the Eye of Jupiter.

During the episode "Rapture" it was stated that the supernova itself was the "Eye of Jupiter", and the mosaic was part of a holographic interface to be used by "The Chosen One" to view the five priests of the temple during the beginning stages of the supernova.

FTL Drive

The FTL, or "Faster Than Light", drive is a spacecraft propulsion technology that allows spaceships to achieve superluminal travel. It functions along the basic principles of a jump drive, with a ship disappearing from its initial location and reappearing instantaneously in a new location.

In the Miniseries, some crewmembers are shown reacting with nausea and/or vertigo when undergoing a jump, though no harm appears to come to living beings even after many jumps. Making a jump eventually proves damaging to the ship's armor and structure in later episodes, after several years of continual combat and metal fatigue have taken their toll on the elderly ship. An FTL jump can be executed in the gravity well of a planet (indeed, Galactica jumps in and out of a planet's atmosphere in the episode "Exodus, Part II"). Nonetheless, it is preferred not to jump too close to a planet, not necessarily because of any physical limitations, but because if the coordinates are calculated wrong there is a risk that a ship might jump too close to the planet and crash into it, or reappear within the planet (This happens to a Raptor in the episode "Lay Down Your Burdens"). Further, a BSG FTL drive can theoretically travel anywhere in the galaxy; the limiting factor is not the drive itself, but the finite distance that the navigation computer is able to safely calculate a jump trajectory; more advanced computers are able to calculate longer range jumps (e.g. the Cylons have better computers and have an effective jump range at least three times that of the Colonials). The extreme distance that a safe jump can be plotted is called "the Red Line", and while a vessel might jump a theoretically infinite distance beyond that, it is possible the vessel could end up colliding with a star, asteroid, or other space debris.

Vehicles

References